what's in season: november

The Elf and the Dormouse

Ink Cap toadstools - possibly!
Not sure but I definitely won't be eating them!

Under a toadstool crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain to shelter himself.
Under the toadstool, sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse all in a heap.

Trembled the wee Elf, frightened and yet
Fearing to fly away lest he get wet.
To the next shelter—maybe a mile!
Sudden the wee Elf smiled a wee smile.

Tugged till the toadstool toppled in two.
Holding it over him, gaily he flew.
Soon he was safe home, dry as could be.
Soon woke the Dormouse —"Good gracious me!
"Where is my toadstool?" loud he lamented.
 
— And that's how umbrellas first were invented.
 Oliver Herford, 1863–1935

dry bones: roasted parsnips are perfect for halloween!

parsnip bones!

Toe bone connected to the foot bone
Foot bone connected to the leg bone
Leg bone connected to the knee bone
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Now hear the word of the Lord.
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

When I reviewed the photos of these roasted parsnips, I began to laugh because the roasting tin of vegetables looked more like archaeological finds try of old bones rather than anything edible. But I promise you, they are soft and sweet and are the perfect cold weather food and not just good for Halloween!

monster mash: swede with carrots

monster mash!
(swede and carrots)

It was a smash; not exactly a graveyard smash but the living were definitely in a state of high old excitement with my monster mash of swede and carrots. I do like a nice bit of swede, preferably with a load of black pepper and lashings of melting butter. It's probably something to do with my Scottish roots (pun absolutely intended!)

The rules of béchamel - good advice for a perfect sauce every time!

a good cheese sauce

If the wisest film advice on classic blunders came from The Princess Bride, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia and never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line . . . ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaa (thud)," then the best food advice was from my friend Katy, who 20 odd years ago when we were impoverished students in Yorkshire cooking over an ancient Baby Belling, taught me how to make a white sauce with the words "and when it starts to look like honeycomb then you're ready to add the milk . . . " The best advice I have ever had in making a perfect white sauce, advice that has never failed me!

a tale in which i face my fears: beef and beetroot patties

beef and beetroot patties

It was cold and dark and we were standing in the pitch black of a field in the middle of the countryside. No ambient light, just a massive bonfire (for it was Bonfire Night), a few torches and the headlights of a Landrover. I welcomed the mug of soup handed to me through the dank November darkness and thanked the farmer's wife for the kind thought and the hot homemade soup. 

perfect autumn fodder: pear and blackberry crumble

pear and blackberry crumble

C.S. Lewis said that "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up", which rather sums up my view of the classic crumble. Yes, I know it lacks sophistication, but like many Brits it is still one of my favourite puddings, a love of which began at a very early age and has shown no signs of waning.

sunday lunch: traditional tarragon roast chicken

tarragon roast chicken

"Dragon's teeth" sounds like some kind of medieval expletive, but in fact it is a country name for the herb tarragon, artemesia dracunculus, so named because its spikey leaves were supposed to resemble the teeth of a dragon. 

Now I have always had a bit of a soft spot for dragons; something to do with being told by Chinese friends in Malaysia that my birth during the Year of the Dragon was auspicious. Personally I think it gave me delusions of grandeur at far too young an age, but I have always felt a bit of affinity with dragons ever since.

posh cheese on toast: bacon, cheese and plum jam

bacon, toasted cheese and plum jam sandwich

There is a story about two psychologists who set up cameras around their house in order to film what their pets were doing when the owners weren't around.

The cat just ate and slept with an occasional mad half hour racing up and down the staircase. But mainly the cat just ate little and often, then curled up somewhere warm and went to sleep. The dog, however, was a different story.

clove-scented windfall pear and blackberry compote

pear and blackberry compote

I like to plan in the kitchen and prepare some things in advance - say cooking up batches of sauces to freeze or buying a bigger chicken for Sunday roast, so that I can get several meals out of one dish. I am currently working my way through a small mountain of pear windfalls and decided to make this simple compote with blackberries. This is one for the freezer and I have plans for it - it will probably get puréed up to accompany some roast pork, it may well go into a cake or accompany some vanilla ice cream and it will definitely be crumble material! 

hodge podge pork and beans with porcini sauce

hodge podge pork and beans with
Sainsbury's porcini sauce

"But since he stood for England
And knew what England means,
Unless you give him bacon
You must not give him beans."
G.K. Chesterton - The Englishman (1914) 
 
The time had come to rid the fridge of a few odds and ends before they re-enacted The Great Escape and dug their way out . . . What I had was a bit of a pork festival; a few herby sausages, a finger length of chorizo, a couple of slices of smoked bacon, a handful of mushrooms and some chicken stock. A complete hodge podge of ingredients.

perfect fluffy mashed potato

perfect mash
(Sainsbury's Heritage potatoes)

Do you really need me to give you a recipe for perfect mashed potato? Perhaps not, but since I have the photo, I thought I would lay out to you the key to a gloriously fluffy, buttery mash.

Many of us are scarred by the horror of school dinner mash - watery, lumpy and a peculiar grey colour, slopped on the plate using an ice-cream scoop. For years I thought I didn't much like mashed potato, until I had the real thing and realised that something so simple can be most sublime.

a simple midweek supper: toad-in-the-hole

toad-in-the-hole with rich onion and mushroom gravy

Traditional English cooking is full of thrifty dishes with ridiculous nonsense names, enough to make any self-respecting schoolboy guffaw, from Boiled Baby to Lobscouse, Froise to Bumper, Cock-a-leekie to Bedfordshire Clanger, and Nickie and Roly-Poly to Spotted Dick. But the pinnacle of these ridiculous sounding thrifty dishes is the classic Toad-in-the-hole, a combination of Yorkshire Pudding batter and sausages. 

It is probably best not to think about how the Toad got its name. I think it is most likely that someone looked at the smooth shiny sausages nestling in crisp but pillowy batter and thought it reminded them of something . . . it doesn't really bear considering that a few bucolic peasants might have skipped around the English countryside espying a few warty amphibians squatting in their hidey-holes and thinking to themselves "now I know what to call today's supper" . . .